


Here To There and The Inbetween

by LaPetiteReveuse



Category: Original Work
Genre: F/M, Great Depression, Historical References, Short Story, Writing Competition Entry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-03
Updated: 2016-06-03
Packaged: 2018-07-12 00:04:56
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 4,968
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7076227
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LaPetiteReveuse/pseuds/LaPetiteReveuse
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>I entered this three years ago in a short writing contest for Penguin. Lucky for me i actually entered it an hour later because i'm just so good at planning. </p><p>We were to write a short (~5,000 words) story that took place in a time in history, so i chose the Great Depression, and it had to include or make reference to a real historical figure, of which i chose Bonnie and Clyde ('cause why not?).</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

It recently occurred to me that at the mighty age of ninety-seven I am going to die fairly soon. The fact is inevitable, we all die eventually and I see no reason why to struggle avoiding the inescapable. But, after my eventual demise, I fear that my story much like my body will be buried forever in the ground from which I came from and have lived upon for these ninety-seven years. I tried for almost an age to either allow the world to understand me, or may myself understand the world; whichever seemed to come first on my timeline didn’t seem to matter. And I feel that it would have been such a shame to have my many efforts wasted on such the pointless exercise. So here in my dying words I shall share with you my living wish; the person who made the world fit.

I had been born Patrick Joseph Jackson back in the January of 1912, though the middle name was only reserved for certain, more dangerous occasions when my mother felt it more necessary to use my full name in order to chastise me for some horrid crime I had committed around the house. God forbid I forgot to say prayer before dinner or forget to wash my face on Sundays before Church. Eventually, during my sixth year, my father shortened my first name to Paddy due to the fact he found it awfully confusing that his name be Patrick like mine, even though he had been the one to choose the name at my birth. Paddy Jackson didn’t go to school to be educated like other children did, we couldn’t afford that. So my mother made the words and the thoughts and cleverly weaved them into me herself with forceful hands. It had been my mother who had told me that with the upcoming and increasing value of the money in our pockets, that if I were taught to read and write like the top paid men could, then I would be working in one of the overly extravagant building up on Wall Street. My Jackson family hadn’t had an ounce of business in their blood since long before I had been born. Father had owned a small plot of land down in the north of Oklahoma, land my grandfather and his before him had worked on till their bones had given in from the years of hard labor or their minds gave in from the heat. Until they had ‘gone runny’ my father had told me many times as a boy when he’d share the history of the land. It was on the Jackson land that I grew, first into a boy, then a teenager, then an adult, though my mother was forever reminding me that when it came to men there wasn’t a great deal of variation in attitude from one age to the following. On the land we’d plant and weed and grow and eat, in that same repetitive cycle for days in and out. My father had only the land to make any money by trade with others living in our small town. Having not been educated as a boy, my father could not write all too well, and instead my mother took care of matters involving mind power while father took care of matters involving strength. Mother knew the knowledge and she knew how to teach it too, with a firm and strong will. She wore a permanent frown for the majority of my and my brother’s youth; she had told me it was from seeing the stupidity of our family. Often she even swore she couldn’t remember why she had married my father as he had always been two pages shy of a whole book, even when they’d met as she’d told it. I knew she loved him however, I saw it whenever she looked at him, I saw it when the little money we had became worthless, and I imagined it when his family land went dry and they had to move west. I saw how much she loved him the first day I was born, and the day I left also.

* * *

I first heard of the infamous Clyde Chestnut Barrow upon the overhearing of a conversation down at the liquor the evening of my 16th. He’d failed to return a rental car on time, they said, but that wasn’t exactly stimulating news to myself who had seen a neighbor imprisoned for said felony a few weeks prior. He’d stolen turkeys, they shared, but still this news was just a cry of desperation to my ears. He robbed stores, stole cars and broke into safes, they frowned, and to this my ears peeked and my interest was caught like a dog with a bone. And even though I’d only heard the name in passing once, I’d learned of the crimes which were caving his imminent gravestone.

The two years following first hearing of Mr. Barrow, he had been found guilty of numerous crimes and in consequence was sent to Eastham Prison Farm over in Texas, not so far away as so he featured in my home town’s news and gossip. It was his tales of crime and love for rebellion that allowed me to do well in the small town I lived. With the hope that further than our maps showed or further than the road stretched, there were people who were not living the same laborious lives that mirrored my own. Mr. Barrow may have just been one person, one criminal, but to my eyes he gleamed with the burning passion to be something bigger, better.

I knew not the events from inside of the prison walls were he was being held. Not then. Not as I do now. Now I know the horrific tales involving sexual assault and Mr. Barrow’s first killing. Life was better when I was oblivious of these facts, but that’s the thing about being oblivious isn’t it? It’s always better not knowing rather than being met with such harsh and destroying truths. When he was released from prison in 1932 – when I had twenty years – his love for crime had increased as it began to be fueled by his love for vengeance against the prison system of Texas. Though at the time I had not known this of course. To my eyes he was still playing a game where the rules flew just ahead of my understanding.

In 1932, Mr. Barrow joined with Bonnie Elizabeth Parker, his colleague concerning crime, and the two became the legendary Bonnie and Clyde. Though my mind ran in a haze though those years. With the hope of escaping my monotonous life, of traveling outside the state boundaries. With the Great Depression came my own personal depression, and the chance of leaving the family ranch became almost illogical to think of. My brother, who was just two years my junior, was of pitiful physical ability. With little strength and co-ordination, he was often left aside when it came to the more strenuous daily activities. After my twenty-second year celebration, I had read too many headlines detailing better lives than my own. I had broken too many bones over land that I knew my father was too poor to maintain much longer. I was too uninterested, too hungry for change, too thirsty for adventure and my own life. Mr. Barrow and Ms. Parker – officially Mrs. Thornton after her marriage to a childhood sweetheart – had both been sentenced to death by this point and were trailing length of the state to escape the narrowly trailing police of more than one state. My idols’ names alone were worth more than my life and so I packed what little possessions I owned into a case and with little money I had acquired in my shirt pocket, I bid my weeping mother _Goodbye_ and my weak father _Farewell_ and then turned my back on the family ranch for what was the last time. Though at the time I had not known when I would return to see my family’s faces, the reality was I never would.

 


	2. Chapter 2

At twenty-two and having never left the town I was born in, I had little knowledge on many things I’d never seen. My mother had once shown me of a map of the USA, but my memory had faltered from that moment to the one where I had been standing facing the road and picking my route. But with the small amount of intuition that I had – and pure luck – I managed to navigate myself to a town in which a small restaurant gave hospitality for a low fee of a Cola.

“Does anybody here know o’ where I might be able to find a map?” I’d called behind the counter to anyone and no one both at the same time. I’d never expected an answer to my questions; I’d called them into oblivion on the off chance someone had answered.

“I got a map.” A voice came from my left as I sat to the counter. As I’d turned I’d first been met by the assumption the voice, which sounded remarkably like a young male’s, had belonged to a boy. Though this first impression was quickly dismissed as I was met by the sight of a strikingly attractive woman. Simplistic of face, though with eyes so deep and fathoming they pierced your soul, she smiled wide showing her teeth which were well kept for the time. Her dark hair, though appearing short had extra length within the curls that fell either side of her face. She leaned forward on her own chair towards me as though expecting me to offer great wonders despite my average appearance.

“Can I see it?” I had asked and as enthusiastically as she had been sitting she took the map from the Gunny sack she’d had at her side and unfolded it before my eyes to see. I admired the names of places that had much more opportunity than my home.

“We’re righ’ here.” She had told me pointing with a long extended finger to the small town to the north of Texas. It was in that moment I scanned the page of the map and decided my fate. I had not heard much from people who had moved to other states, but I had heard that Texas was facing the same hardships Oklahoma was. It the time I had not known that all of the USA had been suffering hardships; I had been no naive as to assume that only what I could see was suffering.

“What’s in Louisiana?” I had asked as I picked it off the map the way a child picks a candy from a selection having never seen the choices before.

“T’ hell if I know.” The girl said peering down at the words herself. I looked up and to the man behind the counter.

“ ‘scuse me.” I said,  “D’y’know what I might find in Louisiana?”

“More economic downfall that needs to be built again.” The man had answered and turned to leave. Though before he had done so, he added, “Huey Long. That’s who you’ll find, little man.” And then he’d turned and left. I had contemplated giving up the idea of leaving home, and instead walking back to the ranch and living miserably for the rest of my days. But I didn’t know the way back particularly well, and even though I hadn’t picked up much distance, it seemed a start. I’d folded the map into the small, thick rectangle it had been before, and handed it back to the girl. She took it from me gently with rough hands and viciously found place for it within her Gunny sack. She almost looked out of place with the tatty sack by her side, yet expensive treads hanging from her skin.

Then I nodded my head as thanks and put my hat on my head before standing and taking my bag with me as I left. The heat from the Texas sun scorched my exposed neck and made my forehead sweat.

“Where’re ya goin’ then?” The girl asked from the doorway of the restaurant. Her hand was held to block the sun from her eyes though she’d still squinted to see me.

“New Orleans, Louisiana.” I had told her, and with a nod she had picked up her sack and taken a step to close the gap between us.

“I’ll come too.” She’d announced enthusiastically.

“No way. I ain’t takin’ a tramp with me.” I’d told her, but she didn’t leave; only her enthusiasm did.

“By Christ!” She yelled, “What is it with you men…,” She almost spat the word like a plague, “…assumin’ woman are here t’ either be your mother or your tramp!?” But she didn’t move.

“We don’t. I’ve just been warned about your menacin’ tendencies.” I told her, because I had. Mother had warned me before I left not to get involved with tramps. She’d said they were a waste of good money.

“Think you’re better than me? Judgin’ by the small trunk you got, I’d think differently.” I had looked down at the brown and worn case in my hand where the clasp had been poorly fixed and the hinge had been nailed on.

“I can read and write.” I’d stated because that usually put me in a higher league than most people I knew.

“Me too. I got the map, remember?” She’d held up her sack as she said it as though indicating to the map without having to take it from her luggage.

I nodded, “Alright. You can come.” I said and her enthusiasm had shot back to her with a squeal and a jump.

“Just so y’know, I would’ve come anyway.” She was next to me when she’d said this, facing the road as I was.

I nodded not doubting she was being serious for one second. “Why’d y’want to come anyway?”

She shrugged looking to the sky, “Save’s me sittin’ in restaurant my whole life. My name is Beth Stanley.”

“Patrick Jackson.” Because I didn’t have my father to get confused by it any longer. Though the name felt odd on my tongue, like it was too old for my face. But it was my name, and from that moment of, Paddy was just a previous person who had lived. Who had grown on a ranch and dreamed of leaving. Patrick was the man who actually left.


	3. Chapter 3

The Gunny sack had had a piece of string tied to it in a way that had meant she were able to wear the sack across her back, while I had to carry the trunk in my hand. The hand in which I carried the trunk switched every few minutes due to the build up of perspiration that had quickly built up in the palm of my hand causing the trunk handle to slip between my fingers.

“Why’re we goin’ t’ Louisiana?” Beth had asked not long after we had left and begun to walk down the road leading the way to the new life. I’d seen her itching to ask questions, or create any sort of conversation since we had left, literally jumping from foot to foot with excited anticipation.

“I needed somewhere new t’ go, ‘nd Louisiana’s close enough.” I answered keeping my tiresome eyes on the glistening, bright road that still lay for miles ahead of us. It would take over two weeks to have walked the entire trip, and as I had still faced the road, I had thought that two weeks was exactly how long it was going to take. I had been wrong of course.

“But Louisiana’s torn down.” Beth had told me, and I had, of course, known this. I had known then that all places were as broken and as poor as my home town in Oklahoma had been, but I didn’t care.

“So somebody’s gotta rebuild it then, right?”

Silence. She had had no words to contradict this, no comeback or excuse. “Why’re you goin’ to Louisiana?”

“Cause I’m followin’ you, dummy.” I wasn’t quite sure what Beth would have done if I hadn’t indirectly proposed her escape from whatever lifestyle she had been living before. I wasn’t quite sure if she _had_ been living a lifestyle. I was still unsure of what lifestyle she was living as she followed me, I hadn’t been entirely sure of what life I was living. I was escaping, not living. Is a prisoner really living when they run, or are they just running? I’d known people who’d moved to our town in Oklahoma, I’d seen people move away too, but the before arriving and after leaving was just a blur to me that I avoided to think about. To me they hadn’t really existed before I’d known them, and after they’d left they might as well have dropped off the face of the Earth.

“Face it, I’m doin’ _you_ a gratitude.” Beth had told me, without actually seeming to talk to me. If I hadn’t been the only person there, I wouldn’t have thought she were speaking to me at all.

“How so?” I’d been quick to question that one. _How had me allowing_ her _to follow_ me _, been doing_ me _a gratitude?_ I’d thought at the time.

“Cause I got the map that you need. ‘nd you wouldn’t last a few days out here alone. You don’t look like you got a scrap o’ meat on your bones. In them fancy clothes, you’d be jumped for sure.” She’d told me, looking me up and down as though sizing me up to see if I were worth the time and effort. She must have decided I was as she stayed and didn’t once try to take off.

I looked down at my supposed ‘fancy’ attire and saw nothing more than what the average men I’d seen wear. Mine was perhaps a little more worn having had a rather lot more use than the clothes of men who’d had more clothing than I’d had. My outfit consisted of large and baggy pants, a plain button down, braces made from string that kept the pants held high, a simple patterned tie, blazer that was perhaps inappropriate in the sweltering heat (but of course necessary), and a felt fedora which kept the heat from my face. Along with my trunk I looked like an impecunious variation of any southern male.

Beth’s clothing looked more expensive than my own, consisting of a floral patterned dress that cut off about four inches below the knee. Complete with buttoned up collar and short sleeves I was surprised that Beth hadn’t sweat through the fabric. On her feet she hadn’t worn the usual high heeled shoes that I had seen my mother and other women in our town wear, but instead she wore small heeled formal shoes similar to my own, except mine luckily lacked a heel.

The rocky gravel under our feet must have become a nuisance to her walking as they stones force your foot to slip every so often. Our conversation consisting of words as useful as silence proceeded for miles of rocky path until the sun dimmed to a barely visible glow, and the sight of Beth opening her mouth wide and taking in a large breath became a clear sign that the night was on top of us and we needed to stop.

* * *

“How’d you come to read and write?” Beth had asked the following morning after a wash from the small lake almost hidden by the overgrown grass and flowers. Beth opened a can of tinned meat that she had been carrying in her bag. The taste was on the border of disgusting, the texture on the verge of inedible. I wasn’t particularly sure that the supposed ‘meat’ was actually meat. And after baking in the warmth of the sack in the scorching heat, the ‘meat’ had more or less cooked and cooled again.

“My momma taught me. Said I ought to know.” I told her as I passed the can and fork back to her so she could take a mouthful of the repulsive food. Though, despite the food’s revolting taste, it was still food I wouldn’t have had in my stomach otherwise, so I made it my aim not to complain. “How’d you?”

“A worker on my daddy’s ranch.” She swallowed and I’d known from the look on her face, she’d liked the meal as much as I had.

“If your father had a ranch, why’d you leave?”

“If you had a mother why’d you?” And then I’d shut up. It wasn’t as simple as two add two, I should have known that.

* * *

The heat was no better than the day before as we walked down the dirt track, clinging to the patches of shade that were only a couple of degrees cooler than in direct sunlight. The sun’s heat infected the whole land, dried up the soil and left nothing but dust in its place. The dust which filled our lungs so much you gave up coughing out after so long. It scratched at the back of your throat like sand, and stuck together in lumps in your nostrils. The wind picked it up off the ground, and smothered it across my and Beth’s faces. From the time we’d started walking to the time we hitched a ride on the back of a truck traveling the same way we were intending; our skin tone had changed shades darker. My white shirt was now brown, and the pants were plastered to my skin with sweat as the adhesive. Beth breathed hard out of breathe, and as her chest rose and fell again quickly I could see her struggle to keep a steady breath. However, even though just breathing had been taking much concentration, she’d spoken between intakes of air.

“Why’d you leave home?” She said after splitting each syllable to a different breath.

“Ain’t you outa breath? We just ran after this here truck.” I’d said struggling, though not quite as much as she had been, to get my words out.

She nodded but then spoke again anyway, “Don’t think about it and it’ll go away.” She told me.

“Alright then. I left because I didn’t want to only live on my father’s land all my life.” I said and by the end of the sentence, the pain beating against my ribs had soothed a little. “How about you?”

“I told you that a worker on my daddy’s ranch had taught me, right?”

I nodded.

“Well that worker was a negro.” She’d then said looking down at the dirt track that was running underneath us.

“My daddy walked in once when he was teaching me and–” She hadn’t finished her sentence, she hadn’t needed to. The words we obvious even though they hung in the empty air.

“Your daddy kick you off his land for just speakin’ to him?”

She nodded solemnly. “If he’d been white Daddy wouldn’t have said anythin’. It’s damn unfair.” She explained and I knew full well of the prejudices again black Americans. Hell, I still do. I still see is everyday like a dangerous reminder.

“What happened to him? To the negro?” I’d asked.

She’d just struggled, “Probably dead by now. Whether Daddy killed him or just made him leave, it ain’t livin’ movin’ from one place to another your whole life. I’ve seen enough men to know.”

The truck rode down that road for hours, until the sky went dark and the air went cold. The air should have been refreshing after a long day of sweltering heat, but the sweat froze on our skin like ice and it seemed worse than the heat. Beth and I slept in a brush, just off the road where a place to stay had already been carved out by previous part time residents. Most likely on the same journey as we were taking. We made a fire on the spot that had already been turned black by ash and both sat too close to the flame to warm up.

“Patrick?” Beth had said in time with the crickets chirping.

“Why you gotta talk so damn much?” I replied wishing the day away with the shutting of my eyes.

“Why you like that Clyde fellow as much as you do?” She then asked and I opened my eyes quickly to stare at her wide eyes in the shadow of the flame’s light. “You got a newspaper in your trunk with him on. Ain’t never seen anyone take a newspaper with them on journeys, he must be pretty important.”

I nodded all huddled up to try and conserve as much body heat as I could. “These past few years Mr. Barrow was the only thing person that made me realize there was something more than the life I was living. News of him was the only thing that kept me goin’.” I said realising how insane it sounded but not giving much of a damn to take it back or replace the words.

“Goin’?” She asked repeating my words.

“Yeah, as in not giving up.”

“What would have happened if you had?” She then asked.

“I think I would have gone downright crazy.” I answered.

“You don’t want to go crazy?” I would have laughed if I’d had the energy. I would have looked at her sideways, but I was suffering from exhaustion so just replied.

“Well, I would have gone more crazy I guess.” And she’d smiled at that answer and then before the last ember had died, we were both asleep.


	4. Chapter 4

Beth and I hadn’t made it far into Louisiana on our third day of traveling (after having managed to find another ride), only what seemed the outer boarder. In a place named Bienville Parish we found ourselves, and we would have carried on walking if not for the sight of Mr. Barrow and Ms. Parker in a car being trailed by the police. I hadn’t followed the news of the pair since long before my leaving Oklahoma, yet I knew perfectly well what they were intending. Robbery. And I also knew how this would end. With very little money earned. They drove past us in their small car, the two of them. He was the same sight I’d seen in the papers and she was just as I’d pictured from the descriptions. Both faces plastered with the same looks of joy for the chase, not despair as you would have assumed. Their fate was inevitable; they knew that, they were just prolonging the journey. It’s what we all do. We all know the end, but we make the journey worth it.

The car was shot to pieces before it even stopped, the rifles emptied quickly. Then rounds from half a dozen guns (four Texas, two Louisiana) were fired through the car doors and windows. I heard Ms. Parker scream as the bullets sailed toward her. A scream which filled the sky and air, a cry out of grief for her lover’s death. And as it became obvious the pair of lovers were dead, another shot was fired into the head of Ms. Parker, just to make sure she wasn’t to rise from the death and cause more grief. Beth and I watched wide eyed and teary as my idols were killed. I waited till the two of them were taken away from the site of their murder. From the sight of their failed robbery. They’d been going to pick up their friend. Mr. Methvin, from his father’s home. And it was Mr. Methvin who had alerted the police of their whereabouts.

* * *

 

Beth, my wife, died three years before this moment now. As I hold the pen in my hand as she used to watch me do many times over the years of our marriage. She and I never made it to New Orleans when we had planned; we were delayed a few days. But once we got there, we never moved. We remained to rebuild what had been broken, we stayed to see the construction of Higgins Boats during the war, we stayed to see the suburbs expand for almost twenty years after the war, we stayed through Fort Lauderdale Hurricane in 1947 and Hurricane Betsy in 1965, and also through the flooding in 1995.

The dust bowl hit my home town not long after I’d left. And I knew there was not use in going back. There wouldn’t have been a ranch when I got back, or if there had have been it would have only been the empty shell of my home that I’d grown up in. And I liked the memory I had of the place much more than what the reality would have been. My family no doubt moved west to California with the majority of the people that had suffered the same devastation. I never saw them again after I’d turned my back.

Beth and I raised three children in the house that had been built all those years ago, and then rebuilt by my bare hands later on. We had said goodbye to those three children too, from the front door of these bricks. And it is where I sit now to finish writing my story. When I had left my home in search for a new adventure, I had expected I would come across something new that would have shaped my life, but looking back, when the girl in a restaurant dressed in a dress that didn’t match her gunny sack told me she had a map, I had never thought she would have been the one to shape my life into something more than just an adventure. It was a history. I was _my_ history.


End file.
